Harlow Presidents XV 81 Child Victims of Crime Bulldogs 25

Charity Game - Child Victims of Crime

Harlow rugby club ended their season with a superb weekend of festival rugby.  On Saturday a team of veterans played in the Maldon veterans tournament and won their way through to the final losing to the winners Romford.  At home on Saturday the third and fourth teams fielded a combined side to play a game against the Harlow under 17s team from 1991.  They came together for this special reunion game and produced an excellent handling exhibition of rugby coming out winners by 34 points to 17 but only after the combined side had gone ahead and stayed in control for the first half.

On Sunday the club staged an all day a festival of rugby as a charity event to raise money for Child Victims of Crime.  This charity is sponsored by the national police rugby side and was adopted this year by Chairman of the Harlow Council councillor Tony Hall as a charity to support during his year of office.  It provides a wide range of services for children who have been traumatised as a result of crime, whether as victims themselves or as a result of coming into contact with crime involving others.  Harlow rugby club were delighted to support this worthy cause and the day raised a total of over £1900.

Throughout the day a programme of rugby showcased a number of aspects of the club’s activities.  It started with an exciting and extremely close match between Harlow under 13s finishing with the narrowest of margins, two points in favour of Harlow and.  This was followed by a match between Harlow under 17s and a Saracens team on this occasion the visitors coming out comfortable winners but nevertheless with some committed play from the Harlow.  This was followed by demonstrations from the Harlow mini rugby section involving the under 8s team and the under 10s team.  Each squad took to the field for 25 minutes providing a demonstration of practice drills and then a demonstration game.  The younger children play tag rugby but the older ones demonstrated that they are rapidly learning the contact skills which are a key part of the sport. Immediately following their games the mini players formed the guard of honour to welcome to the pitch the teams for the main event of the day.  This was a match between a Harlow President’s 15 and the CVOC Bulldogs the team raised by the charity.  The CVOC team contained a number of players with experience of representative rugby particularly police rugby.  The President’s 15 was organized by Harlow director of rugby Lee Harron and consisted of a mix of Harlow players and guests many of whom had played rugby for clubs at national level.  Both sides entered into the spirit of the occasion with a total commitment to playing opened exciting rugby to the enjoyment of the large number of spectators.  In the early stages it looked as though the heavier side fielded by the Bulldogs might have the advantage but as the game progressed the speed and slick handling of the President’s 15 started to show and they ran in a large number of tries, dominating a large part of the second half. 

Throughout the day members of Harlow Ladies squad worked extremely hard to sell raffle tickets while the crew running the barbecue worked flat out to meet the demand from over 400 spectators.  These two events together with sales of match programmes provided a large source of income for charity.  This received eight massive boost at the end of the afternoon and from an auction of rugby and sporting memorabilia which included two superb sets of signed and mounted photographs from England’s world cup win.  One was signed by Clive Woodward and the other by Martin Johnson.  These and a number of other prizes were donated by Mike Jackson of the President’s Sporting Club.

Harlow Rugby Club would like to thank everybody who took part in the day and worked so hard to make it such a success and also the hundreds of members and local rugby enthusiasts who turned out to support it.

Message froim Lee Harron

Dear All,

May I thank all of you for kindly turning out today and playing for the Harlow Presidents XV, particularly those boys that played yesterday and partied hard into the early hours of today !

A score of 81 – 25 in our favour does you all a credit.

Highlights of the day for me:-

The remarkable hands of Paul Eynon as he caught it, dropped it, knocked it forward only to re-gather as he cantered in for his try.

Muna who has not lost any of his wheels.

Pope stating if the Backs start tackling we will start scrummaging

Matt Howards hands after being given a run in from Dave Brown, some things never change.

And of course Prince’s tackle !!

I am not sure of the current figure, but it would appear that several thousand pounds were raised today for the Child Victims of Crime Charity.

Thanks again guys, enjoy a few weeks of before summer training begins.

Take care

Lee

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